Heather Steans and Chicago Teachers Union Toss More C.R.A.P. Than a Busted Kohler!

Chicago Residency Angers Progressives! C.R.A.P.!

You work on the public dime then live with the folks who pop for your dimes.

Why, Il. Sen. Heather Steans, no-less a Progressive Fixed Smiler than Heather Steans is championing our Chicago Teachers Union! Heather Steans smiles more than Joan Rivers. Why not? Happy to help! Now, Heather's bio tells that she was born in Lake Forest ( a metaphor of ethnic and racial diversity in itself!) and worked as a Chicago Public School teacher. That means that Heather Steans needed to move into Chicago. Heavens! Heather still lives in Chicago -can't be all that bad.

Catalyst reports that Marilyn Stewart's Chicago Teachers Union 'demands' a change in residency for Union Members.

Are you a Union? Yes. Are you a committed educator who will do anything for the children? Now, that's a gummy one!

Heather Steans, who had been on the board of the Steans Family Foundation, and continues is a Progressive go-to-girl for Gay Marriage Pushes, Planned Parenthood Baby Barbeques and SEIU boondoggles. Hence that frozen smile. Steans is one of those dopes that Progressives always seem to gush about -"Ain't She Great?" Really, great how? Her legislation that she is try to push past Honest John Cullerton reflects a diminished if not absent intellectual capacity altogether. Great capacity for slinging C.R.A.P.!

Steans is pushing to free the Teachers! What a ton of C.R.A.P. - the sole diet of the Progressive since John Dewey smoked corn silk. Cops, Streets and Sanitation Workers, Foremen, and white collar municipal workers - any one drawing pay from the City of Chicago -my neighbors - must live within the City Limits.

The swell Chicago Public Schools need the teachers close by and comfortable in proximity to their pay envelopes.

Residency requirements for Chicago teachers are back on the Springfield agenda, this time with an unlikely sponsor.

State Sen. Heather Steans says she was able to convince Sen. President John Cullerton to extend the deadline for SB 3522, a bill that would scrap the rule requiring teachers in traditional Chicago public schools to live within the city limits. Mayor Richard M. Daley has long defended the requirement, established in 1996, as a way to try and beef up the city housing market and keep teachers close to the communities they serve.

Should Steans successfully move the bill out of the Senate Executive Committee next week, she believes it could reach a vote on the Senate floor—the first time a residency bill has done so.

Charter school principals do not have the same residency restriction.

“Principals in regular schools shouldn’t be hamstrung,” contends Steans, suggesting the rules unfairly restrict the pool of teacher talent from which principals can hire. “I don’t think it is sound education policy.”

The Chicago Teachers Union says the residency requirement can put members in a tight financial bind, especially during the recession.


“What happens to a teacher if they have to move in with a relative in the suburbs [for financial reasons]?” asks CTU lobbyist Traci Cobb-Evans. She notes that only Chicago teachers would face termination of their employment in that situation.

Why, Traci Cobb-Evans ! You are a LuLu!!! Teacher can't move to the suburbs. Not allowed. They move in with Cousin in Merl in Peotone and they lose the Dough-Ray-Me!


1. Housing market will be fixed by Heather Steans once Teachers are no Long Required to live in the City? You mean all the blighted and vacant housing that would follow the absence of a Residency Rule?

2. Hard Times for CPS Teachers????? If I made their money,I'd throw mine away!

3. Teachers can't move to the suburbs! TS! Tell Steans.

South Side Irish Parade - Lazarus Come Forth!

A solid well done to Chicago Police and Fore Departments and the Liquor Commission!

Yesterday's neighbrhood events were untroubled, because Commander Mike Kuemeth and the officers of the 22nd Police District and Chicago Fire Department specialists worked with Illinois Liqour Commissioners to prevent any all idiocies.

The neighborhood enjoyed a good day - not a great one.

The South Side Parade should march again. Chicago Sun Times writer Mark Konkol, a solid guy and an honest journalist sought out two solid Parade Advocates - James "Skinny" Sheahan, long-time Chicago Special Events Director and Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan concerning the resusitation of this great family event.

Quoth Houli and Skinny:

Born on St. Patrick's Day in 1979, she would be 31 years this Wednesday. 31 years. I'm almost twice as old as that.
When I was 31, well, I acted like a goof sometimes myself. But nobody said, "He got drunk and embarrassed us, let's kill him."
No they didn't. They believed in me. They saw the potential for something greater in me and never withdrew their love and support.
But South Side Paddy ... Well, is SHE really dead?
You've got to listen to the rest: SouthSideIrishParadeeulogy.WMA

By the way, James "Skinny" Sheahan -- Mayor Daley's former parade czar -- predicts the parade will be back next year. Why?
Because without it, Beverly is Irish, but "boring."

More from Skinny Sheahan via the great Mark Konkol

"I'm sure the parade will be back because we need a parade. Beverly's still Irish, but [without the parade] it's very boring," Sheahan said. "Listen, I was in charge of every parade in Chicago for 10 years. I've seen more parades than anybody in the world except for Mayor Daley, OK. This was a great, great parade. Two percent of people at the parade were goofballs, that's a fact. But the parade will be back. They'll have a heart attack when they read that, but I don't care."

Let's revive the South Side Irish Parade! If the spirit is still in the bones, save the wake.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2102550,CST-NWS-stpats15.article

Cousin Willie's Mass & Corned Beef and Cabbage Parade Day Tradition Continues

Cousin Willie is a 19th Ward Icon- Special Events genius,bartender, singer, community leader, and parish-go-to-guy and beautiful Irish/Italian/Polish wife Kerry have tossed a South Side Irish Parade Day Mass longer than most in attendance have been breathing.

President Obama and Michelle and the kids attended when running for the U.S. Senate, Paul and Sharon Vallas, Sheriffs Sheahan and Dart and no end of great folks took breafast and cheer following a Mass.

Primarily Willie's house was swelled by our massive extended family and friends -Winters, Brennan, Walsh, McNamara, Dibrizio, Helmer, Demateo, Diana, Morland, and Hickey members by the butt and boatload.

Though the Parade ended this tradition continued.

Father Jim Hennighan reminded one and all about our granparents. My grandmother Nora Sullivan left Cahirciveen, County Kerry at the age of thirteen and knowing only Irish after a Wake was held for her.

The Irish who emigrated to America rarely returned; thus, the child died for all intents and purposes as she crossed the waters.

My cousin from Castleisland County Kerry Robbie O'Connell joined us. He is the one wearing the Irish Bling of Office as the Mayor of the County Kerry Council.

Willie and his brothers John and Mark made more than 100 pounds of corned beef made by Limerick Mike at County Fair cabbage, spuds, carrots, onions and tables full of Soda Bread. I used to make the bacon and sausages, but told to bring cookies (which I did) but have my nose out of joint because my kitchen skills were not wanted, evidently. Irish Alzheimers - I forget everything,but my hurt feelings.

We had dancing and music - Maura Dalton Winters is my nephew Brendan's wife and was an All Ireland Dancing Champion who now teaches Steps for Cross-Keys.

There were scores of babies and as a typical Hickey/Winters Baby Sap, I had a ball.

Thank you Willie and Kerry Winters

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan's spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart's idolatry,Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

South Side Parade with No Parade: Commander Michael Kuemmeth Prepares for Every Possibility

Commander Michael Kuemmeth and his staff are prepared to make this a nice day for 19th Ward residents and sobering one for nitwits.

I spoke with Commander Michael Kuemmeth this morning and he remarked that we were all in unchartered waters.

There will be zero tolerance for any all breaches of the public peace. No matter what the Chi-Rish ( Faux Paddy Gras Nitwits) believe this parade is was and shall be a neighborhood celebration of Faith, Family and Friendship.

Bus loads of slobs have tossed bottles, cups and at times Fully Kreuzened losers from their doors and windows.

Buses doing such will be impounded in accordance with littering laws.

Bottle and cup wielding dopes will be consigned to the holding pens prior to the trip to the drunk tank.

God Bless the Chicago Police and Fire Departments! They are set up and preparing for the unexpected - To Serve and Protect. Thank you Commander and all the women and men of the 22nd District
Have Fun at the Beverly Arts Center!

Dr. Thomas Origitano - Brain Surgeon Demands Smart and Ethical Choices Over Trumpeted Technology

The most horrific words that I have heard in my fifty seven years on earth were said to me by one of the most wonderful men I have met in that same time. "It's a glioblastoma."

In June of 1995, my young wife, mother of my three children, Mary had a brain tumor operated on by Loyola University Neurosurgeon Dr. Tom Origitano,M.D. - he sent a piece of the tumor to various labs and had gotten the fatal summary from many quarters.

"Mary has a glioblastoma tumor*." This savagely aggressive tumor is more prevalent in males. To my understanding, it is a death sentence. The tumor was massive! The pressure on my poor Girl must have been unbearable, but she was a beautiful, tall, skinny, redheaded, Kankakee Irish/French hardass - who else could put up with south side Irish knucklehead?

Dr. Origitano used a state of the art laser procedure, but warned me that the brain was God's domain and that he would only do as much - actually it was more - as he could do. This was Ali versus Mickey Rooney.

Dr. Origitano looked like Tom Selleck at the time that he treated Mary and they bonded immediately. The fact that I look like Barney Rubble on a good day had no impact on my relationship with this tall, dark, handsome and commanding surgeon had no impact whatsoever - " Oh yeah, Honey,He is almost a cute as you, . . .even without the soup stains all over his shirt. You didn't wear your drop-cloth at lunch again. Now, trot along and get me some ice cream, we have brain surgery stuff to do."

DR. Origitano gave Mary more time with me and the kids than should have been acceptable according to rules of science and technology. Mary kicked at the glioblastoma for the better part of two years before the Divine Ref called the Fight on January 17th, 1998. From that time on, I got periodic phone calls from Dr. Origitano about "how's things going for you?" Dr. Origitano gave me Mary's hair from the last surgery, which I store and treasure.

Today in the Chicago Sun Times, this soft eyed, humorous and very compassionate man of science and skill warns us of taking technology much too seriously - the human brain was built by God.

In the U.S., industry aggressively promotes the rapid adoption of new technology. Manufacturers spend heavily on studies, medical meetings and ads in medical journals and sign up influential physicians as well-paid consultants. This raises the possibility that money, rather than data, is driving the use of new technology. When a surgeon uses a particular brand of clip to seal off a brain aneurysm, is it because the product is truly the best clip on the market or because the surgeon is being paid by the manufacturer? (Loyola University Medical Center, like most other academic centers, has policies to pro- tect against such conflicts.)

Industry has been, and will continue to be, a partner in developing innovative technologies to prevent, diagnose and treat disease. But we need to protect against the possible corrupting influence of industry. And with health-care costs exploding, we also must make sure new technology is worth the cost. Intraoperative navigation may very well prove to be an effective way for surgeons to safely remove larger portions of tumors. But if this extends patients' lives only by two or three months, can we afford it?

Among the most-expensive new technologies are computer-assisted systems that deliver precisely targeted doses of cancer radiation therapy. Studies have found that each of these systems is effective in treating specific types of tumors and other disorders. But in many cases, they are being used to treat tumors or disorders that haven't been studied definitively.

Medical technology also has risks. CT scans and other medical imaging procedures are the greatest contributors to total radiation exposure in the U.S. population. But some CT scans may not be necessary.

This was demonstrated in a recent study at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Our study, published in the Journal of Neurosurgery, examined the routine use of CT scans in patients after brain surgery. We found low-tech bedside exams by a skilled physician did a far better job than CT scans in predicting which patients would need to return to the operating room to treat complications. We eliminated about one-third of the post-operative CT scans because they weren't telling us anything useful.

Thanks Doctor! Thanks for everything.




* It is very difficult to treat glioblastoma due to several complicating factors:[20]
The tumor cells are very resistant to other conventional therapies
The brain is susceptible to damage due to conventional therapy
The brain has a very limited capacity to repair itself
Many drugs cannot cross the blood-brain barrier to act on the tumor
Treatment of primary brain tumors and brain metastases consists of both symptomatic and palliative therapies.

Southwest Observer Scoops - South Side Parade On!

99% confirmed: South Side parade @ 10:30 a.m. Sunday

This is very good news.

» Read similar stories filed under: Beverly Breaking News Local Organizations Morgan Park Mount Greenwood
Location(s)
10300 S. Western Ave.
Chicago, IL, 60643

A

n inside source has told the Southwest Observer that the South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee plans to march - quietly and inconspicuously - from 103rd Street to 111th Street along Western Avenue at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

The reason is simple: The committee will lose its parade permit unless it continues to step off from the original parade start point at the intersection of 103rd and Western. Although no one would confirm this on record, it's all but guaranteed that - because of this technicality - the parade will continue.

For the obvious reasons, the committee has kept it quiet, so as not to attract the thousands of drunks who ruined it in recent years for the rest of the neighborhood.
Still, those partaking in past parade-day imbibing before noon should look out for the small band of marchers who plan to make their way south along Western Avenue. I'm told that they plan to march on the east side, which has always been the dry side and makes sense so as not to attract attention of the potentially hundreds of pub crawlers who plan to continue the other parade-day tradition: drinking heavily.

Kristen McQueary Queen Maker? Did Columnist Give Kelly Burke Bum Counsel"

Kristen McQueary confronts the Old Boys and lands Kelly Burke in the Jackpot.


The Evergreen Park Burke's are a great family. They banded together family and friends and got Kelly Burke, an attorney, a squeaker of a win in the February Primary for State Represenative ( 36th District). Rep. James Brosnahan (D Evergreen Park) called it quits. Kelly Burke won with less than 50% of the vote against a Speaker Mike Madigan and Big Union candidate.

John O'Sullivan, a construction laborer, beat long-time Worth Township Democratic Committeeman Dennis Magee with more than 75% of the vote.

John O'Sullivan , as Worth Township Committeeman, has a great responsibility to many constituencies. One of his responsibilities is to appoint vacancies. One of those vacancies is State Representative James Brosnahan's position. Kelly Burke demured on the appointment and now that seat was filled by Mike Carberry. It seems that Kelly Burke, in order to maintain an independence from the Ward and Party regulars might have been too coy, due to counsel from Kristen McQueary.

After the primary ( Feb. 18th) Kristen McQueary wrote this in the Southtown Star. This was a fed piece. You know - the ones that follow a phone call. The Guide to the Perplexed type. "What should I do Kristen? I won and yet I am beholden." McQueary like every tin-pot Queen Maker with ink to spill, seems to use the earnest Kelly Burke's 'Independendence.' What does a political pundit have to lose? Nothing. Never do. Some elected officials trust journalists and that seems always to their peril.


Kristen said,

But by accepting the appointment to the seat, she loses some of that appeal (Independence my own). She will benefit from the incumbency infrastructure on which Madigan builds his loyalty. Heading into November, she'll have staff, money and resources, a few months of legislative experience, a wider perspective and a fatter Rolodex. She'll probably have a few bills on Gov. Pat Quinn's desk, thanks to Madigan.

Burke said she welcomes the opportunity to serve constituents if appointed, but she will run her fall campaign the same way she ran her primary.

"I ran a pretty strong campaign using the resources of my family and friends and volunteers, and that's kind of my plan going forward," she said.

Appointing someone other than Burke doesn't make sense.

It does not make sense to a columnist with an inflated sense of importance and the need to kick at "The Organization: The Old Boys, The Clout." Columnists love the abstarct notion of Independence and view obligation ( beholden) as some sort of mark of Cain. The only real Independent folks are poor souls that get treated at State Funded Mental Health Facilities - the padded cell fraternity is as independent as it gets. Grit and tenacity are great, but please,get real about Independence. Poor Kelly Burke had the hook run through her gills with that last sentence and the paragraph to come. Kristen McQueary set her hook.

I stood out in the freezing cold with Kelly Burke's husband Terry on Primary Day. Like Kelly Burke, Terry is a wonderful guy. His brothers. two great kids, in-laws and family friends were working like Americans. The whole family, kids included, busted their rumps for Kelly. I also remember that Committeeman John O'Sullivan backed Kelly Burke, in spite of bucking the unions and O'Sullivan is a rock-solid union man.

Kelly Burke was at John O'Sullivan's kick-off party in Oak Lawn, as I recall.

Nevertheless, it appears that political columnist Kristen McQuery was doing a David Axelrod - activist journalist - bit here. Word is that Kelly Burke vacillated about the appointment and waited well past the deadline for the Committeeman.

It seems that she did so by being beholden to Kristen McQuearey's thoughts here in the February 18th column. Good Lord! Be beholden, but take advice from a columnist?

Either way, Burke is likely to land the appointment.

The downside is that she'll be casting difficult votes in April and May on state spending. She'll have a voting record. If the Republicans get serious, they might be able to make things difficult for her. Voters of the 36th District once again could experience a spirited campaign.

Except in that case, Burke might want Madigan's help.

He always finds a way to corral his flock, doesn't he?

That is troubling. The Committeeman, a great guy, wanted Kelly Burke and needed to go with another Burke backer Mike Carberry who also bucked Big Labor.

Good people are often hurt by the press. What goes on in the minds of a "Columnist" God only knows. Kristen McQueary did not help Kelly Burke and if and when Kelly Burke gets to Springfield this incident could dent her credibility with her colleagues.

When Kelly Burke has a beef with somebody, she takes it up with Kristen McQueary.

HBO's Pacific Review in WSJ - Poetic Prose

I read this review of HBO's mini-series The Pacific and was treated to poetry in prose. Nancy Dewolf Smith's close reading of this TV event is splendid writing. Here it is in its etirety. The subject of the War in the Pacific is epic.


HBO's 10-part miniseries "The Pacific" encapsulates the American war against Japan in a series of four battles, as experienced by U.S. Marines, that took place between August 1942 and the middle of June 1945: the famous ones for Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the more obscure but also brutal fight to drive the Japanese off Peleliu island. Even those who know already that the Pacific theater was like no other in the war may be shocked by the harrowing combat re-created here.

Stunning in a different way are the three Marines at the center of the series. In their true stories and, more importantly, their individual responses to the demands of warfare, we find a perfect trinity of action, emotion and intellect. Understated as it is here—we must see for ourselves what these men are, and only with effort, in the most fleeting moments—the nuanced humanity they bring to the screen is crucial. Other characters also leave indelible impressions. Yet without these central three, the series might be little more than a balletic action film with psyche-piercing sights and sound effects.

Sgt. John Basilone (Jon Seda), the machine gunner who won the Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal, is the doer, the man without whom no war would be winnable. Although Basilone was a household name in America during the war, we do not often read his mind in "The Pacific," or need to. Yanked out of action after Guadalcanal to go on a lengthy war-bond promotion tour at home, he buries his frustration in a grim pursuit of female flesh. And yet when true romance arrives—only months before he voluntarily returns to action in the Pacific—the ultimate Marine is the most vulnerable of men.

Mr. Seda, whose face invites us in even as it gives nothing away, deserves most of the credit for clarifying a simple mystery at the heart of braveness; how, stripped to his elemental self, a hero is a kind of innocent. Even so, the power of a scene where we see him without clothes—bursting with health even as he faces death, his skin tattooed and yet looking as unblemished as a baby's—owes much to those who so gracefully filmed it.
Pfc. Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) entered the war later than some, partly because his physician father—who, like many fathers then, had fresh memories of the carnage of World War I—did not want his son to enlist. Sledge's transformation from a clean-living moralist to a battle-scarred realist who needs reminding that he even has a soul can be painful to watch. Precisely because he came to war with a tender, open heart, the price he pays in suffering is a wounded spirit that may never have healed. His story is a reminder that life is not the only thing war can extinguish. Some survive but never regain the capacity to feel unbounded, guiltless joy.

If there is a pair of eyes through which we see most clearly, they belong to Pfc. Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale). He comes to the Pacific already a classic outsider, and although he becomes a crack fighter with close bonds to his comrades, his letters home reveal cynicism and detachment. Some horrors, once seen and participated in, cannot be forgotten, he says. "It is one thing to reconcile these things with God, but another to square it with yourself."

But Leckie, watching and recording, is resilient. From the depths of a total mental breakdown, he latches on to signs of life—some of them no larger than the wisps of blond hair blowing in the breeze on a nurse's cheek. Thanks to Mr. Dale, we see more deeply into Leckie than any other character here, and his transformations from harsh-faced judge of mankind to happy lover and back again are both troubling and marvelous to see.

"The Pacific" spends no time on lectures. Two of the series' most fundamental truths are delivered in single lines. One comes when a taxi-driving vet who served in Europe tells Leckie that the men who fought in the Pacific had the hardest war. Another becomes clear at a sunny behind-the-lines military base where flowers grow and buxom nurses abound—and we are reminded that this picture, familiar even now, is a fake. For most, the Pacific was only blood, mud and lonely, unmitigated fear.

As for the meaning of it all, we have Capt. Andrew Haldane (Scott Gibson) and the words: "I want to believe, I have to believe...every man that's wounded, every man that I lose, that it's all worthwhile because our cause is just." And then there's Bob Leckie's more succinct profession of faith: "I believe in ammunition."

What would the old breed make of all this, if more were alive today? To see the mesmerizing Rami Malek as Louisiana bayou boy Pfc. Merriell Shelton, who first appears like a sinister genie at the gates of hell, but may be something else entirely. To see the faces of the Marines at a jungle showing of "For Whom the Bell Tolls," yelling raunchy comments at the young Ingrid Bergman until her femininity casts a soothing spell and they stare, transfixed, at the screen. To watch once more the splashing men wading into the sea to wash away the gore and filth of months of combat, their naked bodies gleaming as if, somehow, they have been purified...until the next battle makes them sinners again.

Mary Mitchell is an Idiot and Craig Wall is a Punk - Let's Dialog about Race . Oh, Let's Do.

If it bleeds it Ledes( leads) -if it ain't bleeding help it do so. Mary Mitchell and Craig Wall

Some guy in West Beverly put racially charged block letters all over his garage. Mary Mitchell wrote that the guy is an "idiot pure and simple." Not a racist, but an idiot pure and simple.

Could be.

Craig Wall, Fox WFLD investigative reporter boldly put his microphone in the confronted guy's face and demanded to know "Are you a racist?. . .Are YOU a Racist?" Craig Wall repeatedly asked that.

Here let me try - "Are you an A$$hole, Craig?"

Begs the question.

The goof with the yard art might be an idiot and might be a racist.

However, whatever this guy's real or demanded civic crimes might be he takes a far back seat to Fox's Craig Wall and the always reactionary Mary Mitchell. One is a punk and the other an idiot.

Only a punk or an idiot, or both would want to make a very publicly announced,planned and inevitable booze stroll in this neighborhood become a race issue bloodbath.

Thousands of booze fueled idiots ( Bucktown, Ukranian Village, Logan Square, Lakeview and Lincoln Park and suburban Facebook ChiRish - Miller Brewing's Rainbow of Idiots) intend to get their Irish Freak on, despite the fact that no parade is scheduled. Thousands of the past years inebriated guests who took Metra south or boarded Booze Cruise Buses from fern bars will weave up and down Western Ave. in the Facebook inspired Parade of Dopes. Queen Sister of It Takes a Village ( who promptly responded to Craig Wall's clarion call) might join them for Cokes and Jokes. Booze and stupidity shaken up with a pretty lame race story like this will make an obnoxious event a good blood lede for Monday's papers.

This Sunday, thousands of nitwits will converge upon this neighborhood of mine. The Parade is canceled, nitwits. This same quiet and very livable neighborhood has seen too many racially charged and motivated crimes in the last few years. Interestingly, they have been black on white crimes and not t'other way around. Old people beaten to death in their homes and PC dictums require that no Hate Crime be attached - as it was merely a property crime. B.S.!

Only a few years ago, three black kids beat s sickly white boy (heart condition) nearly to death and with much huffing and puffing and crocodile tears columnists like Mary Mitchell insisted no racist motivations whatsoever on the part of the pipe-wielding trio, even after they admitted that they chose the boy because he was a goofy looking white kid.

There was no backlash. Blacks and whites continue to live in the neighborhood. No white on black crime. No lynchings, bull whipping, taunts or teases. Nothing. Black people want to buy homes here and live with people Chicago's Media demand at every possible opportunity to be racist thugs. Ironically, my black neighbors want no part of the thug-life they left behind in Grand Crossing, Gresham, Englewood and Roseland.

Yet, Mary Mitchell and anal apertures like Craig Wall need blood ledes - even when the truth is pretty anemic.

Mary Mitchell is an idiot and a very well-documented one at that. Craig Wall is a Punk.

I used to love the south side parade. I will go to Mass and pray for peace and then keep an eye on kids and home.

*

More than 13,000 people have pledged to show up and another 7,600 responded as a "maybe". Kelleher says he posted the event on a whim and was just curious to see what people would say.

Now the "event" could turn into the world's largest pub crawl. A St. Patrick's Day celebration in New York City set that record last year with 3,163 participants.

Kelleher says there is no official starting place or itinerary for the day. Residents of Beverly are concerned that if thousands of people show up, the crowd would get out of hand.

Alderman Virginia Rugai says she has made the Chicago Police aware of the Facebook posting, but as of now, the police do not plan to add patrols that day.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/2096447,CST-NWS-mitch11.article

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/20100310-racially-charged-display

Massa's in the Hot, Hot, Hot Shower! DNC Lather Lobbying.

Rep. Massa says it was not sexual harassment - it was 'Tickle Fights!'

Bony Finger poking Rahm Emanual lobbies Massa's support in the Congressional Shower!

Yet, I am still a Democrat - Chicago Democrat. Hey, really. We showered together after practice in high school and that was it. Really.

The South Side St. Paddy Parade With No Parade but A Parade of Idiots!

With the cancelation of the south side Parade, young festive Bucktown/Wicker Park/Lincoln Square/Lincoln Park swells and maids by the bus load from Fern adorned saloons, will be seen going east and west on Western Ave. this Sunday.

It is always heart-warming when a bullet proof, fully Kreuzaned, soul patched young buck manages to slur out a demand for the non-existent south side taxi cab -"Ehh, OhFuggah. Wherez a Cabs at? Maaaan Do'od yoo Suck!" Followed by a sharp moistening of his chinos and an acrobatic weave backward, onto my lawn. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

While we regret the need to alter such a fine tradition, the Committee feels that suspending the South Side Irish Parade in its present form is the just and responsible thing to do.”

The decision has since created uproar on Facebook. Over 30 groups and events were created, some comprised of around 10,000 members. After numerous posts of pointing fingers and expressing grievances, the groups now talk about turning the weekend in Beverly into the world’s largest pub crawl. “I say everyone just shows up and has a good time,” said Anthony Palaggi on one of the group sites. “Viva la Resistance!” said Mike Benninghoff on another site.

Click my Post Title about the Facebook Parade of Drunks

Col. James A. Mulligan - A Heroic Figure from Chicago's Buried History

I re-read a 1921 edition of Catholic Church in Chicago 1675 - 1871 by Gilbert J. Garraghan, S. J. no doubt one of Father Damen's later disciples.

This history chronicles the growth of Catholic Chicago from Father Marquette's original Mass for the voyagers on the sand dunes near the mouth of the Chicago River to the Great Chicago Fire.

The first Catholic Church built in Chicago was Father St. Cyr's St. Mary's located on the south side of Lake Street near State in 1833 with a mere 200 ( mostly French) worshipers.

By 1857 and flood of thousands of Irish immigrants, the still magnificent Holy Family Church towered above 12th Street ( Roosevelt Road; a Catholic College was in place at St. Mary of the Lake and Catholic Institute (later the Chicago Lyceum) -Literary and Debating society flourished.

One of the chief members of the Catholic Institute was recent graduate of St. Mary of the Lake College - James Adelbert Mulligan.

Col. Mulligan organized the three Catholic Military societies ( the Shields, the Emmett and the Montgomery Guards) into the Chicago Irish Brigade, which was the 1st militia from Illinois recognized for the Federal Army in the American Civil War. This body became the Illinois 23rd Regiment.

Col. Mulligan led the Illinois 23rd ( 3,500 tough Micks) to Missouri where it faced Confederate General Sterling Price's force of 12,500 Rebs in what must have been the wildest battle of the Civil War - The Battle of Lexington also known as the battle of the Hemp Bales.

Hemp is dope. Mulligan's force was outnumbered and surrounded on the campus of Masonic College. Sterling Price bombarded Mulligans troops from September 18th through the 20th. On the 20th of September, Price soaked hundreds hemp bales in the Mississippi River and used them as breastworks - constantly closing a grip around the throats of the 23rd Illinois.

General Price probably should have lit them bales on fire and smoked the Micks into submission. Too stoned to fight?

Nevertheless, the soaked bales did the job and Mulligan and the 23rd were captured and later paroled in a prisoner exchange - not uncommon in the old rules of war.

Mulligan became the commandant of Camp Douglas but was removed for treating the Confederate Prisoners with dignity and food. Progressive minded radical Republicans wanted the Camp to be a punitive exercise - starve and freeze the Rebs.

Col. Mulligan returned to combat leading the Chicago Irish Brigade in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley against Confederate General Jubal Early at Leestown and later Second Kernstown ( n.b. Illinois Irishman James J. Shields defeated Stonewall Jackson at the 1st Battle of Kernstown in 1862 and was the only Union General to best Jackson) where Rearguard Action expert Col. Mulligan fought a fighting retreat and was killed by a Confederate sniper.

We read way too much mythology about Jane Addams and Lyman Trumbull types and most of it is inflated nonsense.

James A.Mulligan was quite a historic figure. We only read about great Americans like Beaubien, Brownson, Shields and Mulligan in books that were close to history and not re-invented redactions of history.


James A. Mulligan (1830-1864)
James Adelbert Mulligan was a brevet brigadier general of volunteers in the Union Army. An Irish politician in Chicago, he raised the "Irish Brigade" (23rd Illinois). He was wounded at Winchester and as his men were carrying him from the field he ordered them to save the flag rather than to save him. He was captured and died three days later.

Pat Hickey's Film of "The Snot Locker"

The New York Times called The Snot Locker "the year’s most critically acclaimed American film." Rotten Tomatoes reported that 0.1% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on a sample of "both of them," with an average score of 8.4 out of 10, or something like that and it was the second highest-rated film in 2010 at this site, behind Polanski's's Up with People Like Us. At Metacritic, which assigns a rating normalized to 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 0.0 based on 33 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes wrote of the critics' consensus, "A well-acted, intensely shot, action filled war epic, Pat Hickey's The Snot Locker is thus far the best reviewed of the recent dramatizations of the nose."[25]

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun Times refused to rate the film, but Roger Egbert, a guy in Custer Park, IL., thinks this is the best dang old film of the year and as one of the best of the By God decade, writing, "The Snot Locker is a great film, an intelligent film, a film shot clearly so that we know exactly who everybody is and where they are and what they're doing and why." He applauded how the suspense was built, calling the film "spellbinding, but that did not happen. I thought I was Farmering on the cold ground myself." Egbert considered Houli "a leading contender for Academy Awards", writing, "Houli's performance is not built on complex speeches but on a visceral projection of green stuff that tells who this man is and what he feels and that is sinus backup. He is not a hero in a conventional sense." Shot entirely in Illinois. and on a cell phone camera at that, Hickey captures what it really feels like to be stuffed up and congested.

See this film, before the Nyquil kicks in!


The Snot Locker

"Stuffy" a fifty-ish Actor with a Radio Show - Mike Houlihan

"The Kid" a baby - Morganthaller Cavendish

Music Score Aqualung by Jethro Tull

Cinematography - Cingular One